


The Burning Times

by GenerallyHuxurious (GallifreyanOmnishambles)



Series: Huxurious Huxloween [21]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Horror, Body Image, Burns, Disassociation, Dismemberment, Fire, Flashbacks, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Paranormal Investigators, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:44:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8371039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GenerallyHuxurious
Summary: Set in the Eldritch Effect universe. Hux has a hard time dealing with the aftermath of an exorcism.For Huxloween day 24





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry there's no day 23 fill yet and this is a reworking of an older piece again. Real life sucks.

"Hux?"

He stares at the boots in front of him. Ugly battered things, covered in chains and straps and buckles. They probably cost $500 new and would have still been unrecognisable within a week.

Still, they're already ruined, so it doesn't matter when they start to melt, the soles bubbling and spreading out across the tarmac. Huge toes with nails painted electric blue peek out for just a moment before they char and crumble away into nothing but bone. The leather of the boots smells terrible as it burns but not as bad as the meat inside them, even the small amounts of fat catching to fill the air with something visceral and horrifying.

"Hux? What are you doing?"

The curb is cool under his arse, a welcome relief from the oppressive heat of the day. Even if it does make his knees ache.

He scrubs at his face with his hands.

He can see the boots in front of him. He can see the charred and battered skeletal feet too. They're occupying the same space simultaneously. He can see the fire that consumes them and feel its heat and his airways are filling with that terrible crackling choking smell.

“Hux, can you hear me?”

Someone is talking to him. How, when there is no one here? Just the fire that's always on the edge of his consciousness.

The feet shift and flex. They bend at the toes as denim clad legs join them in his eyeline. Huge, thick thighed limbs, too strong and weighty to burn. Too vital, too precious to be gone.

He looks away, his gaze dropping to his own outstretched limbs. Or rather where they used to be. There's nothing there now but fire and ash and pain. He can still feel them- the pressure in the heels from the way he's balanced on the curb, the pinch the left shoe always develops after a long day walking, the seams of his jeans between his thighs. But there's nothing there.

"Donal?"

How does a voice that deep sound so small and unsure?

"Donal, look at me."

He raises his head, compelled by the phantom touch of fingers under his chin. He doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see the ifrit standing here ready to take back all its gifts. He doesn't want to see that it was all a dream after all and he's going to die alone in the dark on this cold desert hillside.

"Donal, please."

He risks a glance, catches sight of that scarred beautiful face and ridiculous hair. He sees the ruined skull and the flames. He looks away.

Something brushes across his thoughts, a chill that briefly dulls the flames.

"Oh Jesus, Donal no."

Strong arms encircle him, muscles rippling beneath the grime and the sweat that he knows is transferring to his shirt. No, to his ruined flight uniform. No... that was years ago... what...

"Donal I'm so sorry," the voice is impossibly deep, fervent and rich in his ear. It’s echoing in his head, ripples of cooling calm that reach the parts of him that are burning and screaming, relief that lasts only for a moment. “It was your idea, I didn’t think, i should have thought...”

The words themselves don’t matter. It’s the tone, low and concerned and trying to hide the worry. It’s the arm around his chest, the hand in his hair, the bulk of the thighs against his back and side, the pulse where his head rests on that impossibly, stupidly muscular chest. It’s the all pervading smell of cloves and sweat and hairspray and sex that Kylo never, ever seems to be totally free from. 

If he focuses on all of that, if he lets the sensations fill his mind he can find his way back. It’s 3:37pm. He’s on the outskirts of Eagle Point, Oregon, not in Iraq. He’s sitting on the curb in front of a burning ranch house in some cookie cutter suburb. The thing that had lived there was too dangerous and too belligerent to exorcise any other way. It had made sense to burn it. But Hux hadn’t accounted for the years of accumulated kills. And the smell....

Kylo’s singing under his breathe, holding him close and murmuring so the rumble through his chest can ease Donal’s panic.

He opens his eyes and whines.

His legs are still gone. There’s still nothing there but torn and tattered muscle and the jagged remains of his femurs.

He doesn’t even get a chance to open his mouth to articulate it before Kylo has shifted, dragging him sideways into his lap as one arm tugs him closer and the other covers as much of his (real, fully existent) legs as he can reach. 

Kylo tried to do this once with his talent, phantom hands touching every inch of him but how can something unreal convince anyone of reality? This is what he needs. The weight of that arm, the press of his fingers, the texture of elbow and muscle and a hundred different bracelets- it all serves to ground him and something in his chest finally loosens, lets go of the fear and the memories. 

He can hear the sirens approaching in the distance. He knows how odd it’s going to look- a six foot redhead huddled in the arms of this ridiculous creature in front of a burning abandoned building. But right now he’s too comfortable to care. He’ll talk his way out of it. Whatever ‘it’ turns out to be. He always does. But for now Kylo can keep on singing.


End file.
